Chapter 21
Daria knew what Gregory sought to do.
She drew in a shuddering breath, caught between desire and reason.
He didn’t wish to share more. He had opened himself, and was ready to close the door. Revealing the painful part of his past, had cost him. He was asking without words—and somehow, she, who was wretched at prevarication, understood. Understood him.
Just as she knew Gregory needed to feel some measure of control in his life.
And she yearned to give him the pleasure he had shown her so freely, even as he denied it to himself.
The floorboards dipped behind her.
Daria felt Gregory’s presence before he touched her. His command of a room carried the same quiet authority as his hands—the way the very air seemed to alter, even before he settled his palms at either side of her shoulders. Her eyes slid shut.
His hold was gentle and firm in equal measure, possessed of an innate steadiness. The sort Daria had never known—and never would—save with this man.
Gregory brushed his lips along her throat.
Her eyes grew heavy as Daria reached behind her, threading her fingers through his luxuriant blond hair, faintly curled. The softness belied his strength, like a halo granted to mark his worth.
Gregory’s palms glided along her arms. Shivers followed in their wake.
“This time, love, not even God himself will interrupt our joining.”
Love.
The gravity of his promise, coupled with that seductive endearment, sent a dangerous swell of emotion through her chest.
Unaffected—unbothered, unaware—he kissed his way along the swath of skin he exposed, stealing more of Daria with each lingering touch. Pieces for which there would be no recovery.
Gregory, with capable fingers, loosened the black silk ties of her day dress. Effortlessly graceful, almost reverent, he drew the fabric open. Slowly, he edged the dark material back, revealing the white muslin beneath.
Not as a man who feared refusal and uncovered her body gingerly, lest he startle her into retreat. No, her confident husband, a skilled lover, did not doubt her surrender.
He slid the muslin sleeves from her arms until she was free of them, and the thin layer of protection—against both the chill and his touch—fell in a whisper-soft rush at her feet.
Against her back, she felt the ridge of his manhood, long and hard as steel.
Warm wetness gathered at her womanhood. Daria shifted and squirmed, seeking relief from the ache he had stirred.
Gregory brushed his lips over her shoulder blade.
Her breath caught on a hiss.
“You are so responsive, Daria,” he murmured, his voice thick with want. Want for her.
With a sorcerer’s patience, he traced a path of kisses along her shoulders. As his mouth worked its slow spell, his hands coaxed her shift downward. The fabric slid to her hips just as Gregory sank to his knees behind her.
Taking her by the hips, he let his tongue dart along the length of her spine, alternating between lingering kisses and teasing strokes. The tip of his tongue traced the center of her back, where she was already bare, until she stood wholly exposed before him.
“Look at us together this time, Daria,” he commanded raggedly.
Unlike before, Gregory turned her with near-violent urgency until she faced them both.
No. Not forced.
She would shatter worlds for the sight of herself with her magnificently crafted husband. She wanted to watch as he touched her.
A slow smile curved his lips. “Tell me what you want.”
Naturally, he knew. But he would have her say it. Give voice to it.
“I want you to hold my breasts.”
Gregory complied at once, filling his large hands with her pale flesh. Her breath caught.
A master of her body—as Poussin had been of his pastorals—Gregory lowered his head and rested his chin against her shoulder. “Is this what you mean, love?” His tone teased, his expression no less so.
She bit her lip, squirming.
“If you are obliging enough to tell me,” he murmured, “I shall stroke you between your legs as a reward.”
“Touch my nipples,” the words rasped out of her.
“Touch—?”
Crying out, Daria dragged his hands where she ached for him. “Pull them,” she begged, her body jerking with frustration. “Rub them.” She worked his hands in hers.
Gregory’s playful look faded. Desire darkened his eyes. “Good girl.”
A low, wanton moan spilled from her lips.
“Watch me, Daria,” he coaxed. “Watch me touch you.”
As though she could look away.
With a few firm pulls of his fingers, the tips hardened into aching peaks. “See how good we are together.” One hand continued its work while the other settled low on her belly, just above her curls.
Her breath caught and held. Of their own volition, her hips moved, eager—seeking the promise he had made.
“I am very pleased with your honesty, love,” he murmured, his voice a deep rumble against her back.
Boneless, her head fell against his shoulder.
Gregory palmed the damp curls between her legs.
Crying out, her body buckling, she arched violently against his hand.
Her husband caught her hard and fast against him, the oak-like strength of his thighs unyielding.
The harsh rasp of her breathing against her ear betrayed him. “I’m going to help you, little raven.” Gregory rubbed the flat of two fingers over the seam of her entrance.
Another cry ripped from Daria’s lungs. With an intuition as old as Eve, her hips undulated.
“You are fire in my arms,” he hissed. Sweat beaded at his brow.
Whimpering, Daria pressed herself backwards. His shaft throbbed and pulsed against her taut buttocks, and he rubbed himself in slow, smooth circles over her silken skin.
“God, you are magnificent.”
Gregory placed a tender kiss at her temple; tears threatened at his unexpected gentleness.
“I love how wet you are for me,” he crooned.
His naughty praise drew her lust higher. Daria arched back against the broad wall of his chest and thrust her hips hard at his fingers.
A sharp hiss sailed through his teeth.
He didn’t relent. He stroked her until the slow slide of his fingers left her incoherent. Her speech dissolved to a plaintive keening.
While he pleasured her with those long, strong digits, his other hand cupped her breast.
Daria bit her lower lip.
Transfixed, Daria watched through glossy eyes at the forbidden things he did to her. He tugged lightly at the peak of her right breast, rolling the pebbled bud between his ink-stained fingers. His other hand moved a faster pace within her.
“Do you know what I love, Daria?”
Me!
Longing burned through her. She squeezed her eyes shut against the reckless yearning.
Gregory glided his fingers over that her little nub inside responsible for her pleasure, and gave it several rubs.
“Gregory!” she cried his name.
Breathless, Daria stacked her palm over his, keeping his hand where she needed him most.
“Your release earlier came too quickly.” His gaze burned with a raw intensity, his chest rising and falling hard beneath her touch. Yet his voice remained measured—controlled. “I intend to teach you the splendor of having your pleasure drawn out.”
“I adore your breasts,” he continued, surveying her with the same appreciative attention he once reserved for an Arcadian pastoral. “But they are made for my hands.”
His fingers brushed a sensitive place within her—just enough to make her gasp—before retreating.
The caress was fleeting. As he resumed a slower, deliberate rhythm, Daria sagged back on a sob. “Gregory!”
He did not answer her plea. Did not relent. He held her there, suspended in want, as though patience itself were his sharpest instrument.
“Your areolas are captivatingly full,” he continued in that conversational tone that lent an air of wickedness to what they did. “I am very pleased with how big they are.”
A tremor passed through Daria. Her unsteady gaze lifted from where their bodies pressed close to meet Argyll’s. She craved his approval—luxuriated in it.
His mouth curved into a faintly arrogant smile. “Yes, Daria. I have imagined you naked and open to me just so.”
He traced a slow circle around the soft center of her breast, the touch unhurried, reverent. “And your nipples?” he murmured. “I confess, I imagined them deeper in hue.” Gregory paused and pondered her flesh. “but I find this dusky rose far more pleasing.”
As if to reward Daria, he bent his head and drew one of those sensitive tips into his mouth.
A broken moan escaped her as she tipped her head back against him, breathless and undone.
Moaning, incoherent, she thrashed her head against him.
He continued rhythmically stroking her. Faster.
“Gregory,” she breathed. “Gregory?”
“Yes,” he answered softly, a rasp of heat beneath the word. “Come for me, Daria.”
His eyes, darkened with want, held hers—mirroring her own need—and the sight of his desire was her undoing.
Daria clung to him, eyes fixed on their reflection as sensation crested and carried her under, until she could scarcely tell where her breath ended and his began.
When had he ever been this bent on anyone’s pleasure other than his own? How and why, when he ached to bury himself ballocks deep inside her, did he want even more to take her to newer and newer heights?
In this moment, hunger for this woman trumped fear.
It trumped everything.
Argyll’s chest moved fast. “If I were a proper gentleman, I would take my time.” He shoved his jacket off. “I would strip myself down and go slow. But I am no gentleman. I need you now, love.” He cupped his hand at her neck and angled her mouth to receive him.
She stirred and moved and moaned against him, coming back to life in his arms.
Burying his mouth in hers, Argyll swept her into his arms and lay her down gently upon the center of the mattress.
“I hate lace,” she panted between his kisses.
Narrowed to a single need—to be inside her once and for all, he struggled to attend. “Do you?” Argyll would store that detail for a later date. He stroked her with his fingers.
“Y-Yesss,” she hissed. Argyll raised her right breast to his mouth and swallowed her nipple. “It is o-on the coverlet.”